Saturday, August 7, 2010

This past week I had to return to work for a few days to help register kids. It was tough to get back into the groove of it and leave the girls, but I knew that Mike was home with them and had everything under control.

One of the great things about having two parents is that what one hates doing, isn't good at doing, or refuses to do, the other often picks up the slack. It's like that in a lot of areas of our parenting.

In this case, the place that I refuse to go is Chuck E Cheese, and we've managed to avoid it thus far. Apparently my hatred of the place is not held by Mike, who took the girls there while I was at work. Layla used some of her allowance money to play some games and it kept them busy for a little while on a rainy day. I use the term allowance lightly. She gets 3 bucks a week for feeding the dog every morning and picking up her toys at night. We make her save $1 of it and she can spend $2.

Anyway, at dinner that night Mike asked me if I had ever taken the girls there before. When I said no, he replied with "well Layla knew all about it".

To which Layla looks me dead in the eyes, smiles and raises her eyebrows to tell me "that's right mama, I know ALL about it" brow lift and intense glare.

How do kids pick up on this shit? How would she even know about it? Commercials? Perhaps. Other kids at daycare? Maybe. It's irritating though. Those little suckers have a kid network that runs deeper than any of us realize and they just LOVE telling each other about shit that is going to make their parents miserable.